Improving the X-Plane and XFS experience?

[DragonShadow]

Hello to any general aviation enthusiasts out there.

 

I've ended up bringing some people to DCS before by just being interested in it myself, and I thought there must be such people here in terms of X-Plane and XFS as well if I just ask.

 

I'm rather interested in giving either one of the simulations a more proper whirl. I actually have both X-Plane 10 (stand-alone) and XFS Steam Edition already, but it feels to me that the out of the box experience with either one is somewhat lackluster. While in most cases graphics are relatively unimportant to me, when it comes to general aviation I feel it's quite important to the experience of 'being there'. That and realistic systems and flight modeling of course. I've seen some videos that look nothing like the base sims, and to my understanding this is generally remedied with a generous amount of addons? At this point I have no idea where to start though, and what would really be worth getting.

 

My primary interest right now would be truly bringing a simulator to life and making it look as real as possible, with a well modeled single prop light aviation aircraft and some scenery and a few airfields to fly from. Perhaps something alike the Ikarus C42, basically something that is feasible to fly VFR in reality. I'm willing to spend a reasonable amount on this, something that would get me started and be possible to build upon later rather than necessarily having to get everything at once. I'm perhaps leaning a bit more towards X-Plane on personal feeling.. But whichever can be built out to such ends would do.

 

I'm not overly enthusiastic about the thought of having to do a lot of manual work on getting things working (editing files, etc) while that's something I can certainly do too if it's worth it, but more polished installation would be nice. So what do you think? Can we get me off the ground, and where should I go from there? DCS always has missions for something to do, what about these sims after you've got the plane down? Multiplayer would be high on my interest list too.

 

Suggestions appreciated :)

Edited January 6, 2015 by DragonShadow

[xxJohnxx]

Hi,

 

I have personally flown most of my civil-simulator-time in FSX, so I won't be able to help you out with X-Plane.

 

Let's start with VFR.

 

Scenery:

 

- https://www.fullterrain.com/ or otherwise known as Orbx.

 

These are the guys you want to be buying when you want realistic scenery, where you can use actually maps to navigate.

 

They offer a couple of products:

FTX Global -> More of a world-wide improvement, often using automatic generation tools to place building. Improves the default scenery, however is not as detailed as their other products.

 

FTX terrain regions -> Small patches of land (often still quit big) with very high detail, improved airports (not to an really advanced level, but much better than default). The scenery looks very realistic, most of the details are hand placed.

 

Airports -> For each of their scenery regions they have AddOn airports, that take the improved airports even further, to a very high level. Moving cars, people and animals add some life to the whole thing.

 

Check out their demos as well, they will give you an impression of their work.

 

Airports:

 

This is quit difficult, because you normally don't really buy airports by the manufacturer but by the location (if that makes sense). However, the airports sold by publisher Aerosoft (http://aerosoft.com/) are normally a safe choice. If you find some airport on there you are interested in, Google for Reviews, just to make sure.

Aircraft:

 

Now, a lot of companies sell General Aviation aircraft for FSX. Most of them produce decent stuff, some of them better stuff, and few of those awesome stuff.

 

Generally I can recommend these companies:

 

- http://a2asimulations.com/

They sell you a product in two pieces. The base module and the AccuSim module. The base module is nice, but if you want realism, you want to buy the AccuSim as well.

All of their products are top-notch, the quality is perfect and it probably won't get more realistic than this.

 

- http://www.realairsimulations.com/

Their DukeB60V2, TurbinDuke and the Lancair Legacy are safe bets as well. They are a bit faster though, and especially with the TurbineDuke, you will be cruising pretty high up. The Lancair Legacy is a low to medium altitude prop and ideal if you want to look at fancy terrain at speed.

Their products are very nice, however they are not as realistic as the products of A2A simulations. Nothing is.

 

- Aerosoft

Yes, those guys again. Aerosoft also publishes aircraft. Here you have to be a bit more careful though. Some of them are at A2A level (for example the DA-20), others are not. Reading the reviews is a key factor to know what exactly you will get.

 

That's all for now.

 

If you need any more information, let me know!

 

Best regards,

 

John

[DragonShadow]

Hey xxJohnxx, thanks for the rather informative reply.

 

Orbx looks interesting, they appear to have a few time unlimited demos even which would be perfect for checking what I can put together with FSX without investing into it yet. I'll be sure to grab those and give them a try. I'll probably be most interested in the FTX terrain regions, since for now I'd be doing more localized VFR rather than crossing continents or so.

 

Will certainly take a look at the airports as well It's interesting, if a little unfortunate if they are something separate from the terrain packages then. What do you normally get for these packages? The airport structures modeled and a little of the surroundings perhaps?

 

Finding one awesome light aircraft for starters sounds good to me :). Later on I'll probably be expanding out from there, but just having one good one to enjoy learning, flying and the scenery with would be perfect for now. Do you know if these kinds of addons are compatible with the Steam version, or would I need to be using a stand-alone with them in general?

 

It sounds like I'd be going for the A2ASimulations AccuSim module then indeed. I think something low to medium altitude would be the ideal solution. Flying too high up I'd pretty much be missing one of the joys of VFR flight altogether.

[sobek]

Please resort to the respective publishers or developers forums or seek out general forums dedicated to that purpose (SimHQ perhaps?). This forum offers a news section about other sims but is in general intended to host content related to Eagle Dynamics' products.

 

Thread closed.

Edited January 6, 2015 by sobek